473 Crescent Street
This little street, isolated by the construction of I-580, has several old sidewalk stamps.
J. A. Feeley appears to have been active in carpenters and joiners union affairs in Stockton in the teens and early 1920s before showing up in the Oakland papers around 1925 as an official in the Building Trades Council of Alameda County and the business agent of the Plasterers and Cement Workers union. In 1927 he relocated to southern California where “he had associated himself with a large material supply firm.” Another person by that name later lived in Chico as “a retired hardware and nursery man” in the 1930s. That person’s son used the last name McFeeley. However, my search of Oakland and San Francisco directories comes up blank.
Feeley also spelled his name “Feely,” I suppose when he was in a hurry.
13 March 2023 at 3:58 pm
This is such a nice-looking mark from your photo, and the location is not far from where I live so I’ve walked up Crescent Street to look for it several times, most recently this afternoon, and haven’t yet found it. It’s frustrating since there’s overgrown ground cover planting along the inside part of the sidewalk and lots of debris from trees all over the driveway and other parts of the sidewalk, plus there’s a small section of new-ish sidewalk paving so it may or may not still be there. I’ll keep trying to find it :-)
21 April 2023 at 3:44 pm
I finally decided this afternoon that the plant debris and dirt on the pavement in front of this address was never going to be cleaned up so I did some excavation where I thought the mark might be located. Sure enough, I was able to uncover it near the base of the curb cut. Dirty but still very legible – a nice older contractor stamp. Go see it now before it disappears under more debris again :-)